Miley Cyrus Triumphs At Kids' Choice
It was the best of both worlds at Saturday's Kids Choice Awards for Miley Cyrus, who took home trophies for favorite female singer and TV actress and rocked the show with a spirited performance of her hit song, "GNO - Girls Night Out."
It was also a slime spectacle for the Nickelodeon children's television network, which broadcast the 21st annual show live from UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in front of 10,000 screaming fans, almost all of them teens and preteens.
At an outdoor event hosted by boxer Laila Ali and displayed on giant screens at the show, several stars did battle with the network's trademark green slime. Akon crashed a dune buggy into giant containers of the goo, Usher blasted a sumo wrestler several yards with slime fired from a cannon and supermodel Heidi Klum, attached to a bungee cord and wearing a specially equipped "butt spike belt," flung herself into a wall covered with slime-filled balloons.
"Don't try this at home," Ali said as Usher turned the cannon on the sumo wrestler.
Photos: Kids' Choice Orange Carpet
The slime stunts and other assorted foolishness - which included a soundtrack of celebrities burping as an instrumental version of the Village People song "YMCA" played in the background - took up so much time that presenters never got around to announcing three awards.
Photos: Fun & Slime On Stage At Kids' Choice
The show always draws A-list stars who seem to enjoy the show as much as the screaming kids in the audience. No star is safe from the slime, as this year's victims Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser and Orlando Bloom can attest.
In the categories that were announced, teen heartthrob Drake Bell was another double winner, collecting his third consecutive orange blimp-shaped trophy for favorite TV actor and another for favorite TV show for "Drake and Josh."
"Drake and Josh" upset Cyrus' hit program "Hannah Montana" in the TV show category.
Other winners were Eddie Murphy for favorite voice from an animated movie for "Shrek the Third," "American Idol" for favorite reality show and, one of the biggest crowd favorites of the night, the Jonas Brothers for favorite music group. The ever-polite Jonas Brothers each offered brief thank-yous. Chris Brown won for favorite male singer.
Ryan Seacrest accepted the reality show award saying he looked forward to presenting it to "two of the three" of the show's judges.
Cyrus, in a black dress with silver spangles, thanked several people, including her mother, father, agent, manager "and my lord and savior Jesus Christ."
She returned a few minutes later to perform her song, and had a camera crew scampering to get out of the way when she charged into the audience, microphone in hand.
The Naked Brothers Band also performed a song from their forthcoming album "I Don't Want To Go To School."
Cameron Diaz injected one serious moment into the 90-minute show when she accepted a silver blimp as this year's Wannabe Award winner, for the person kids most want to be like. After a montage of clips from both her movies and her efforts on behalf of environmentalism was shown, she encouraged the crowd to do their part to protect the planet.
"You're going to change the world. Every one of you kids is the future," she told the audience. "Everybody go out and make the world a better place."
Diaz, who was the first ever Kids Choice Awards burping contest winner, has long said that was the favorite of all her awards. She said this one trumped it.
Jason Lee accepted the favorite movie award for "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and said it was one of his biggest thrills.
"I'm going to hang this from the ceiling because it's the greatest award anyone could receive because it was voted on by the kids," he said as he held his blimp.
Awards are voted on by people who cast their ballots at Nickelodeon's Web site, with voting continuing until the day of the show.
The show's host, Jack Black, announced that 88 million votes were cast this year, more than twice last year's record number of 40 million.
The show concluded with Black and Bloom sitting in chairs high above the audience being drenched with what Black claimed was 27 million gallons of green slime.
21st Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards Winners
By John Rogers